Chowdaheadz

The Chowdaheadz (Uncle Vinnie and Mrs. Sullivan in this case) have struck! (As if he ever had a choice....Uncle Shaun has also supplied some great Sox gear)  So it took a full three weeks, but being a Sox fan who is still terrified to let go of every miniscule superstition, and three being a lucky number of mine, I feel quite okay that it took three weeks to take his first sox pics.  This will help to keep the balance of the universe for now.  

Wow!  A child born into a universe where the Red Sox (and Cetlics!) are champions.  A sports fan could not ask for much more.  "The Sports Guy" compared this to being Hugh Grant; all we can do now is mess up the great karma just as Hugh did when he solicited short-term friendship from a lady of the night, ending his relationship with publicly acclaimed Elizabeth Hurley.  Personally, I would take Big Papi over Elizabeth Hurley. However, the point is this, here we are in 2008 and the world around us (for Boston fans and rich people) is filled with optimism.  Levi Dougherty will never know how it feels to be locked in an 86 year drought (I really hope this year doesn't begin anything new) or what it feels like to only see your team's championship photos in black and white.   Thanks to a great front office we will enjoy man years of unbelievable baseball and hopefully another championship very soon.  Levi will be able to look people in the face when he is  7 years old, claiming to be a Red Sox fan.  Prior to 2004, when a child would wear a Red Sox shirt, he or she (Boston has the most knowledgeable female baseball fans of any major team) was often met with sly smiles and pats on the head, only to have the adult whisper to your father, "Poor kid."  We now have a taste of what New York has been bragging about all these years.  Two titles in four years while our biggest rival struggles to keep its head above water with a stellar ensemble of talent.   

Levi will never live through Dent, Buckner, Little, or even Boone for that matter.   He has a baseball world filled with belief in front of him, one in which his team CAN win and Babe Ruth will simply be the player who hit many a home run and drank way too much (which somehow makes his accomplishments that much more incredible).  Sure, we will inform him when the time is right, but how does one breech such a sensitive topic with his own child?  Surely he will have to be grown, or maybe tidbits of info on each trip to Fenway (there will be many, as there were with me and my parents).  However it may occur, it will simply be a bleep on the radar for a young gun looking to take on the world.  I can hear the Wiffle Ball reinactment in the park or the backyard now, "Papi at the plate, sox knotted at 4 in the bottom of the 12th.  The pitch from Quantrill, and there's a long drive deep to right field, back, back, back, gone!"  The world is alright.  Love ya, Levi, and welcome to the greatest (at least the most romantic) tradition sports has ever seen. 

Your Papi